Everywhere you go these days, you hear negative comments about the economy. As more uncertainty flows, businesses will continue to tighten their purse strings and look for ways to cut costs. One way to save on costs that is relatively simple, yet very effective is to use newsletters to market to customers and communicate with employees.
Newsletters are easy to create and an effective way to communicate important news and events to coworkers and customers. Additionally, they can be a very effective marketing tool. Using internal resources such as contributing writers, an email system and internal editor, newsletters can be inexpensive to produce and distribute.
If you decide to use a newsletter in your organization, there are several key things to keep in mind. First and foremost, you must define the audience. An internal newsletter should be written differently and cover different topics than a customer newsletter. For internal newsletters, articles topics can range from company events and financial and organizational updates to HR related concerns. Customer newsletter topics will be all together different, covering things like product pricing promotions and new product releases to customer service tips. Regardless of the audience, the articles in the newsletter should include catchy titles so as to encourage people to read the newsletter.
The information communicated in the newsletter must be of relevance to the audience, topics with which they can relate. Now, consider how you will be sending out the newsletter. Email is the fastest and cheapest way to distribute a newsletter. And, if you use email, you can also add some personalization by including the recipient’s name. This is a nice touch, makes the recipient feel important and causes the reader to be more inclined to read the articles. Keep the newsletter subject matter light; add humor or personal anecdotes if the topics allow. If it gets too deep, you will lose readers and leave room for misinterpretation. The material in the newsletter should also be presented in an easy to read format. Use bullets where possible, include subheadings and, if sent via email, include hyperlinks to webpages where additional details can be found. For customer emails, it is essential that you allow the customer to opt out of receiving the newsletters. Simply providing a link at the bottom of the newsletter will do the trick. Finally, if you are looking to grow your customer base, include a link to encourage readers to forward the newsletter to their friends or colleagues.
Now that you understand the basics, you have to decide what tool(s) you will use to prepare your newsletter. There are a number of options available in the market today, ranging from very simple to complex. Most desktop publishing software packages offer the ability to do a mail merge which saves a lot of time and allows for personalization. Additionally, many desktop publishing applications include templates that help you to set up your newsletter, making it very straightforward for even a novice to get started. Finally, you need to consider the format by which you will be distributing your final product - print, web or email. Many products include the ability to handle all three but it is a good idea to confirm. While you may not think you are ready for email newsletters, you may change your mind in the future.
So, when selecting your desktop publishing tool, consider one of the following: Microsoft Publisher, JangoMail, News Publisher, Adobe PageMaker or Adobe InDesign. Each of these options has pros and cons and you need to consider which one best fits your needs.